Review of Dead Man (1995) by Chris B — 01 Apr 2014

I find the movie Dead Man really affecting. Stunning.

One reviewer called it an "existential Western," and I guess that's as good as anything. Another compared it to Apocalypse Now, which also seems relevant somehow. Depp is the main character, called William Blake, and the Indian.

(Farmer) who finds him with a bullet in him thinks he's the.

Reincarnation of William Blake the poet. The Indian.

Just happens to know, and to quote, the poetry of.

William Blake. (I remember reading once that Allen.

Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac first met after they had.

Run into one another a few times, reading Blake's poetry.

(for free) while standing in the Columbia student bookstore.).

...

At times it's laugh-out-loud self mockery, but at other times.

It feels profound. There's a lot of violence, more than.

I could usually sit through, and I did close my eyes and bend.

Over to put my head down behind the seat in front, a couple.

Times... but the violence seems somehow sanitized as symbolic, of what? Hobbseian reality? American social intercourse? The Indian says of Depp's new 6 shooter.

That from now on Blake will use the gun to write his poetry in blood. (Contrast McCarthy's similar 'passer-by' violence in The Road, which is unbearable for me. I can't sit through it.).

...

I don't know how well the movie would work on a small screen.

It wouldn't, at least for me. And the music is important... it's original by Neil Young, and mostly just spaced out guitar chords. I saw the movie at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and even that sound system couldn't handle the deep bass vibratos.

...

Some say it's one of the greatest movies of the 1990s, and that may very well be true. For sure it is one-of-a-kind.